On November 09.-10., 2018, TUM School of Management, the Chair of Research and Science Management and the new Center for the Advancement of Leaders, Leadership and Digitalization hosted the first ever Leadership Researchathon. 18 leadership scholars from all across Europe took part in this innovative event to further our understanding of what leading people in the digital age means.

The participants from renowned institutions, such as, University of Amsterdam, University of St. Gallen, FU Berlin, and LMU, met with four established leadership scholars at the new TUM Campus Heilbronn on Friday around noon. Deanne den Hartog (University of Amsterdam), Ronit Kark (Bar-Ilan University), Ilke Inceoglu (Exeter University), and Claudia Peus (Technical University of Munich) acted as mentors at this event.

After a panel discussion with two representatives of local companies and the mentors, the participants generated ideas for new research projects, selected a few, and started to develop them further in small groups. The groups focused on leadership in the digital age: What does formal leadership mean in the digital age? How can trust be built in virtual teams? How does the role of leaders change?

Several hours of intense discussions, feedback, coffee, and pizza enabled the participants to pitch the final versions of their research projects on Saturday afternoon. Based on written proposals and the final pitches the mentors awarded 1000€ to the winners: Paul Westhoff, Ulf Steinberg, Petra Kipfelsberger, and Brooke Gazdag. The winning team proposed a research project to analyze leader and follower roles in the digital age.